The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Molière
Molière
,(
1622
–
73
),
French
comic playwright and actor. Son of the court furnisher, he was educated at the Jesuit Collëge de Clermont, but at the age of 21 abandoned his commercial prospects in order to found a professional theatre. From
1645
to
1658
he toured the provinces. Returning to Paris he was granted by royal favour the use of the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon. For the next 15 years he played regularly before city and court audiences, his troupe being adopted by the king in
1665
. He was at once enormously popular and the object of professional and ecclesiastical malice. Equally gifted as actor, director, and playwright, he was the creator of French classical comedy, bringing to a new synthesis the major comic traditions at his disposal: the high comedy of
Corneille
and Rotrou, the Latin comedy of
Plautus
and
Terence
, and the improvisatory farce of the
commedia dell'arte
. The 30...
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